Visual Music for the Deaf by Dr. Mohamed Abdelwahab Abdelfattah

Visual Music for the Deaf

Educational Project

For

Horace Mann School for the Deaf

By

Dr. Mohamed Abdelwahab Abdelfattah

Project Topic:

This project aims to establish an orchestra comprised entirely of Deaf and hard of hearing students from the Horace Mann School. Using new and innovating instruction these students will learn the art of music culminating in a live performance demonstrating the art of visual music. This project aims to establish a healthy and accessible artistic atmosphere in which Deaf students will be able to study music. By accessing the art of music these Deaf students will add another viable way of communicating with the larger community.

Research Hypothesis:

1- Deaf children trained to see music (visual presentation). They will learn:

a. Understanding the language of visual art related to the music.

b. Appreciate music and analysis its form elements.

c. Learning the writing and reading of the music notation.

d. To be able to compose musical score.

e. To performing the music instruments.

2- Deaf child trained to see music will increase their comprehension of:

a. The progression of patterns and sequences of colors

b. Increasing their memory for vision and memory in general.

This project involves training exercises in which the students will feel sound as it is conducted through the bones. This means sound vibrations will reach the brain as the individual holds or touches the instrument with any part of their body, particularly the limbs, head and shoulders of the individual. In addition Deaf Children will be trained to recognize visual patterns of color connected to musical elements. We refer to this as visual music.

“What is Visual Music?”

Visual Music is a term refers to the analysis of music through visual patterns.

This project would be divided into three steps:

1. Evaluation – baseline
2. Application – training
3. Culminating performance
4. Final evaluation – post evaluation
   

Unit I

Evaluation

Each student in the school would participate in a series of preliminary evaluations. These evaluations would be conducted twice a week.

1- A total of 15 students will be evaluated in each session

2- Each evaluation will be 10 minutes for each student.

These evaluations would begin at the secondary level and proceed down through preschool.

The groups would be divided as follows:

1. Ages 14-17
2. Ages 10-13
3. Ages 6-9
4. Ages less than 6 years old.

The overall evaluation includes three types of assessments:

1. Hearing/Visual levels (quality of the students ability to hear and to see)

a. Hearing quantity

b. Hearing quality

c. Memory

2. Hearing/Visual aptitude
3. The aptitude of each student to translate sound elements to visual elements

Ideally a file would be composed for each student including their audiogram, vision testing, etymology of Deafness, medical history, any current medications, and any other cognitive or learning disability. A table which called "Case History" would be created depicting this information as follows:

"Case History"

Name of Student

Hearing/Optical Level

Audiogram

Etymology of Deafness

Any current Medications

A table for the results of the evaluation would include the quality of vision and hearing, music aptitude, visual aptitude, sound and visual memory. These evaluations would translate into various levels:

1. Level 1 – excellent for both music and visual aptitude
2. Level 2 – very good meaning one aspect (music or visual) is excellent and the other is good
3. Level 3 – good for both music and visual aptitude
4. Level 4 – average meaning one aspect is good the other is not
5. Level 5 – weak in both music and visual aptitude

Student Name

Music Quality Level

Visual Quality Level

Translation Visual/Sound Level

Vision/Sound Memory

Case History

Unit II

Application

We will evaluate 150 students and selected 100 from this population

1. Divide students into 10 groups with approximately 10 students per group. For total of 100 Students are grouped according to their ages and artistic aptitude level – (one week)
2. Teach each group the vocabulary involved in learning visual music – (one month)
3. Mix the groups to create 5 groups with approximately 10 students per group – (two weeks). [These groups should be mixed from different levels of student to achieve a balancing psych-social between them.]
4. Rehearsing and practicing, learning the aspects of visual music – (one month)
5. Classifying students into 5 groups in gradually levels according to their music and visual aptitude – one week. [the purpose of this classifying to achieve the best results in the understanding and performing for visual music].
6. Giving each group a pacific visual composition to perform it.
7. Rehearsing and preparing each group for a public concert of visual music.
8. Post evaluation the results of understanding the music of their visual moments.

Unit III

Public Performance

During rehearsals students would be fine tuning their techniques in playing their musical instrument, and would also be involved in establishing the visual show on colors, shapes and light patterns. The rehearsals would also include learning and understanding the gestures and signs of the maestro, stage movement, and concert etiquette.

drabdelwahab deaf music

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